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Old 13-05-2018, 21:17   #1
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Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

It's my own fault.
With the boat at my dock in the back yard, I keep starlings (a crapping machine if there ever was one) off my boat by pinging the mast several inches below the mast head whenever one lands on the top.
The birds have been trained to make a mess of the neighbor's boat and sail cover instead of mine.
I must have aimed a bit high as you can see in the photo below.
I knew exactly what happened the minute I arrived at the top of the mast !

The hole was facing the mast. It must have been hit with a ricochet.
I found the offending BB inside the unit.

A new Bullet M2 was installed on the same trip up the mast and I'm back in business.

Overall I'm still ahead financially as my sail cover is in new condition and my neighbor's is more green than blue with all the slime growth from the bird poop.
A sail cover replacement would cost a lot more than a new Bullet, and the old one's plastic was beginning to crack in a couple places.

Wife is buying the story too !
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Old 13-05-2018, 21:59   #2
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Shoulda installed the titanium. That slug would have bounced off!
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Old 14-05-2018, 05:19   #3
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

I can relate to your feelings toward starlings.

My neighbor has a tree which produces red berries, or maybe some sort of cherry. The birds love them. But they prefer to sit in the tree above my driveway to digest them, with predictable results. Believe me, if you thought white bird droppings were bad, you should see the ones which contain industrial-strength red dye.

All in all, yours was a small price to pay. You've done well.
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Old 14-05-2018, 05:34   #4
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Here in Nice in the south of France I had the birds shi..t red poop all over the boat. They were pathering here at the end of the summer before making the great crossing to Africa.
Last autumn I put three 4 inch discobal spheres in the mast on different places.
Have not had the red poop on my boat this winter.
It seems they don’t like discobals.
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Old 14-05-2018, 05:39   #5
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Obviously you know now that it isn't a great idea to shoot BBs at the mast when items may get inadvertently damaged.

I feel your pain and agree birds are a pest but if you've ever scoped in your BB gun (with BBs at a paper target) you know that they aren't always that accurate/reproducible. I'm talking about a rifle and if you are trying to hit a bird with a BB pistol with sitting on the boat, good luck Resist the temptation when you have expensive items mounted up there!

Also not to beat a dead horse, but the BBs that didn't hit anything can damage near by boats. I've found a few on our boat from kids shooting into trees and it leaves a small dent in the f/g or worse if it hits the solar panels.

If the birds are landing on the spreaders, I've seen people string fishing line above them with good success.


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Old 14-05-2018, 05:52   #6
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

I've used bullets, but not on boats. What kind of antennas are attached to them for sailboats? In general, does the arrangement work well? What kind of range?
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Old 14-05-2018, 08:46   #7
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Had a problem last summer with seagulls landing on our A-frame stabilizer support structure and crapping all over our solar panels. Bought a $25 BB pistol from Walmart. It's incredibly accurate. I can lean out over the rail and see a seagull sitting on the A-frame. One shot popping him in the butt and off he flies. I shot about 6 of them on day 1 after getting the pistol and apparently they spread the word that ours was not a comfortable boat to sit on. For the next week we were at that anchorage, we did not have another single seagull visit!
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Old 14-05-2018, 09:12   #8
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Best thing that I have found that you can do in a Marina is squirt them with water, apparently they really don’t like that.
I doubt a BB gun would be accepted in a marina.
I have tried CD’s on fishing line etc and nothing seemed to do anything.
I have not tried the dead bird thing though.
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Old 14-05-2018, 09:31   #9
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill O View Post
Obviously you know now that it isn't a great idea to shoot BBs at the mast when items may get inadvertently damaged.

I feel your pain and agree birds are a pest but if you've ever scoped in your BB gun (with BBs at a paper target) you know that they aren't always that accurate/reproducible. I'm talking about a rifle and if you are trying to hit a bird with a BB pistol with sitting on the boat, good luck Resist the temptation when you have expensive items mounted up there!

Also not to beat a dead horse, but the BBs that didn't hit anything can damage near by boats. I've found a few on our boat from kids shooting into trees and it leaves a small dent in the f/g or worse if it hits the solar panels.

If the birds are landing on the spreaders, I've seen people string fishing line above them with good success.


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It's a pump action Daisy air rifle, no scope.
The elevation is dialed in for the distance, but for a certain number of pumps.
Nothing but trees and a bluff in the background.
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Old 14-05-2018, 09:50   #10
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

A few year's ago, while docked in a marina, a very large aggressive Sea Lion would attack you as you walked down a certain dock [where i was located], the powers to be, would not deal with the situation, so the impacted owners carried a Pellet gun, and shoot the offending animal in the fin [totally illegal],which did the job, nothing like a 1000 pound dude rushing at you at night, to get the heart rate up there.
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Old 14-05-2018, 10:53   #11
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

Good for the "impacted owners".
Some laws are stupid.

Here's my shot background when whacking the mast with BB's.
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Old 14-05-2018, 11:08   #12
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

.22 birdshot kills the poop out of em. very little damage from lead pellets the size of poppy seeds. maybe more potential legal trouble shooting gunpowder.
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Old 14-05-2018, 13:54   #13
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

I just wonder, has anyone tried stringing fishing line from the mast down to the safety rails in a radial pattern or something like that? I understand they have a hard time seeing it and are frightened off by running into something they can't see.
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Old 14-05-2018, 14:54   #14
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Re: Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

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.22 birdshot kills the poop out of em. very little damage from lead pellets the size of poppy seeds. maybe more potential legal trouble shooting gunpowder.
When we bought our place, many years ago, you could stand flat footed on the manure in the barn and touch the trusses. It has 16 feet of clearance, without the poo. Anyhow, this place came with rats. I'm talking millions of rats. I don't care for cats, but the rats were so bad that I took weekly trips to the shelter to adopt cats. Now, I'm glad to be rid of the rats,(and the half century worth of manure) and I wouldn't want to have them back, BUT.....Sitting in a lawn chair with a six pack and a pair of single action .22 revolvers loaded with birdshot, and waiting for rats, is one heck of a good time.
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Old 14-05-2018, 15:08   #15
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Bullet Didn't Dodge a BB

When I was a kid we had two barns close together one held hay, the other corn. I think the rats lived in the hay, but ate the corn.
I used to sit on our Ford Jubilee tractor with a Remington nylon 66 at night and every few minutes turn the lights on, the rats would freeze until the first shot. I would usually get the first, but any moving shots were just pure luck. Those things were fast.
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